Dvorkin, a former AOL executive, believes his model, which he calls "entrepreneurial journalism," is a big part of what Forbes needs to start growing again. Entrepreneurial journalism -- in which writers function as freelance contractors with a financial interest in building their own readership -- is the golden middle road, he says, between the old paradigm represented by print magazines and newspapers, and the new one represented by blogs and websites.

"On one side is low cost, low quality," says Dvorkin. "On the other side is high cost, high quality, and they're so calcified they can't change. What you need is high quality, efficient. You need to be a scalable content-creation force."